Wow, this has been a big month. I’m really surprised by how much I’ve saved.
The grand total (drum roll please…) is £1421.64
Some of the big savings:
A big chunk is because our fridge freezer packed up. Quite timely as there were some great deals in the sales. For the type and size we wanted, and having checked the reviews I went for a Hotpoint reduced from £450 to £269. O2 priority moments had a £25 extra off voucher, bring the total saving to £205.
Rather than just auto-renew my home buildings and contents insurance I searched for a new quote. I paid up front rather than monthly and slightly increased my excess too. That all saved me £280 on what it would have been.
My coat ripped so a new one was needed. Though you can’t always trust TK Maxx rrp labels, I saved £100 on a nice one that should last me a fair few winters.
I booked a train ticket to Manchester for next month. If I’d turned up on the day it would have cost me an extra £90. It actually could have been even more but I think most people would wait 20 minutes to save £50.
Some of the smaller savings:
There were plenty of small savings too, and they can really add up. Here are some of them:
Using MySupermarket, coupons, in store offers, reductions and comparing brands/sizes of products, I saved a total of £90.85 on grocery shopping (after dividing by two to represent savings for one person). That’s 39% percent of what it could have been.
We also went to Paris as our Xmas presents to each other and my birthday present to Becky. Though we paid for that last year (so the deal we got isn’t included), researching the best exchange deals before we went and using a Halifax Clarity card for all purchases there saved us £71 over 5 days. Divided by two as per my rules that’s £35.50.
January is always a busy film month with many Oscar contenders released. A combination of NUS card, Picturehouse membership card and a deals site voucher saved me £33.30 from six cinema trips.
Cashback:
It was a bumper cashback month too. £168 was paid direct to my bank and another £27 was paid as Clubcard vouchers (I always use these on train travel as double value so I’ll get further savings when I cash them in). Some of these purchases were from December such as £30 for switching energy provider and £60 for registering the domain for this very site. You can read more about cashback in our 12 Basics post.
So in summary, in January 2014 I saved £1416.65 from a spend of £2401.21. That’s roughly 37% of what I could have spent.
Freezer: £205
Insurance renewal: £280
Coat: 100
Meals/Entertainment: £151.23
Supermarket: £90.85
Trains: £125.10
Things in the sales (eg glasses, drill): £84
Miscellaneous (eg haircut): £14.25
Freebies/Competitions: £44.09
Bills: £94.60
Cashback: £194.81
Interest: £37.69
I can’t see next month matching this amount, but we’ll see!